Riders on the Storm

by Ed Gorman

  The long, narrow face grew taut and the brown eyes showed fear. “Hell, I might be in trouble now. You shoulda told me that, Sam.”

  “I won’t say anything to Billy if you don’t. I wasn’t trying to get you into any trouble, Marv. And I’m sure you won’t be in any trouble if we keep this between ourselves.”

  He managed to mumble agreement but I could see that now we didn’t have any connection at all. He felt betrayed and even if I was pretty sure Billy would never find out I didn’t blame Marv at all for feeling used.

  18

  THAT AFTERNOON WE TOOK THE GIRLS TO A MOVIE.

  There was only one we were under sacred obligation to see and that was Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. On the way to the theater Kate was so rhapsodic about seeing it that Nicole finally started singing to shut her up.

  Twenty minutes into the movie Kate climbed up on my lap and went to sleep.

  The movie was only one of the subjects we discussed when we used the outdoor grill in the back yard to make burgers. I even made a couple burgers myself and nobody died.

  In the long twilight everything slowed down and quieted down and for once the melancholy I usually felt at dusk eluded me. It was touching to hear the girls slowly slip into exhaustion. To hear Kate this subdued was a revelation. She asked her sister to tell her the rest of the movie when they went to bed that night. Mary was quiet as usual. She always joked that who needed TV when you had the two girls. She loved watching them together. So did I.

  I had to carry Kate inside. She was out. Mary revived her for the bath and the good-nights and the prayers and then the lights-out.

  “I am so lucky to have them,” she said when she came back and sat next to me.

  “You sure are.”

  I got a bottle of Hamm’s from the fridge and went into the living room and we watched a rerun of an old Jackie Gleason series, The Honeymooners. Gleason was always good but the woman who played his loving and lovely wife and the guy who played his bumbling buddy were just as good. The desperation of their lives reminded me of growing up in the Hills. All those men back from the big war trying to work their way out of poverty while their wives cut every corner they could while trying to raise their kids right. The show was sad fun but fun nonetheless.

  I grabbed the phone when it rang.

  “I’m trying to reach Sam McCain.”

  “That’s me. Help you with something?”

  “My name’s Cliff Donlon. Tim Duffy’s a friend of mine from bowling league. I was talking to him and he gave me this number and said I should call you. I worked for Steve Donovan. I did not work for Anders.”

  “That’s an interesting distinction since they were full partners.”

  “I was with Steve from the beginning. He changed a lot when Anders came along. I almost quit when Al Carmichael left. Al was a great guy. Anders ran him out and Steve let it happen. But I stayed. Since Steve is gone I want to talk to somebody about something that’s been going on there ever since Anders came.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “I’d rather meet for an early breakfast. I need to be at work by eight so how about meeting me at McDonald’s at seven? The one on the east side.”

  “I’ll be there, Mr. Donlon. And thank you very much for calling.”

  19

  MCDONALD’S WAS STILL SOMETHING OF A NOVELTY FOR OUR TOWN.

  A local land baron had a young daughter who’d made him drive her to Iowa City every week to pick up a huge sack of burgers and fries which would be stored in the family fridge and then heated up whenever the teenager desired. The local land baron decided it would not only save him from driving into Iowa City for the stuff, it would be downright profitable if he owned the franchise himself. Instant McDonald’s.

  Donlon waved me over, a redhead of forty or so in a gray worker’s uniform, a long, wiry body and a pair of savvy blue eyes that were street-smart and withholding of judgment on everything that passed before them. He had a quick, iron handshake.

  I set my thousand calories down across from his and sat down. We had to speak up to be heard above the packed house.

  “The wife says this stuff puts the weight on me. But you can’t prove it by my scale. I weigh about what I did when I was in high school. She also says it’s a lot cheaper to eat breakfast at home. But I’m addicted to this stuff.”

  “It’s pretty good.”

  “I’m kinda in a hurry to get to work so I’ll get right to it.” Quick sip of coffee. “I was one of Steve’s first employees. His dad had been in the Navy and so had I. Steve liked that and so we got along very well. Till Anders came into the picture. He got rid of Al first of all and Al had been just as nice to all of us as Steve had been. Steve gradually got to be pretty much like Anders. And Anders was making most of the decisions. You could tell that, everybody could. Steve’d start to say something and Anders’d just interrupt him. Sometimes Steve would just take it but sometimes they’d argue right in front of everybody. Or they’d go into one of their offices and then they’d really argue. I missed the old Steve and so did everybody else who worked there. Then Anders made me start making these runs for him.”

  “What kind of runs?”

  “To this cabin he had that nobody was supposed to know about. He said he’d fire me if I ever told anybody about what I was doing.”

  “Doing?”

  “Yeah, loading up maybe twenty of our shipping boxes—the medium-sized ones—and then running them out to the cabin. I also took along packing material for shipping. I thought it was strange. We have our own shipping department and those women are damned good at what they do. So I was always kinda curious about it. Then Steve gets killed.”

  “You’re making some kind of connection?”

  “I’m just saying the way those two have been going at it lately—well, Tim Duffy told me that this Will Cullen is a friend of yours and you don’t think he did it, so I thought I’d let you know about these runs I make for Anders.”

  “How often would you say?”

  Between the milling people waiting in line, the tables and booths swollen with people and the speaker announcing orders that were ready every few minutes, the noise had risen even higher. A relaxing, cordial atmosphere setting just the right ambience for dining on the exquisite cuisine. I’d always prefer the mom-and-pop diners I’d grown up with.

  “Three, four times a year.”

  “Tell me about the cabin.”

  “Pretty fancy.” He then went into detail.

  “Where’s it located?”

  He slid a clear pencil-drawn map on a sheet of plain white paper across the table to me.

  “You did a hell of a good job with this.”

  “Thanks.”

  “When’s the last time you went out there?”

  “Two weeks ago. And when I did, Steve was waiting for me when I got back. He told me I was never to do this again. And that was when Anders shows up and the two get into this shouting match. It was right near the loading docks in the middle of the day.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I just went back to work. I saw Steve get in his car and drive off. He peeled out pretty fast. I felt sorry for him. A lot of people didn’t like him but I did. He was a hard worker and a good boss. Anders is a lazy sonofabitch. I already put my application into two factories yesterday. I won’t work for him under any conditions. Steve and Al built that business, he didn’t.”

  “You have any idea what your trips were about?”

  “Not really. But I don’t figure it was anything legal.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  “I guess we pretty much agree that Anders had something to do with Steve’s death.”

  “Now I have to prove it.”

  “Anything I can do, just let me know.” He checked his watch. “Guess I’d better hurry up and eat. I hate to go back there with Steve dead and all but I need to make sure I get all the money that’s due me so I’d better be on time.”
/>   He finished his food and then did away with his coffee. “Wish I didn’t like this stuff so much.” His one and only smile.

  “Like I said,” he said as he grabbed his gray lunch pail, “anything I can do, you keep me in mind.”

  The Wentworth apartments were the first in town to offer a swimming pool, a game and dance room, and owner-sponsored parties in said game and dance room once a month. They’d been built three years earlier, four three-story buildings of stucco and wood treated to look like driftwood. A singles place but, unlike its competition for the singles crowd, they didn’t make a point of it in their advertising.

  As I walked to the manager’s office—Tom Wentworth had small real estate offices all over town; Cathy Vance’s was right here where she lived—I passed along the pool where eight young women (I counted them) lay in lounge chairs. They wore bikinis of various colors and hairstyles of even more variety. A speaker hidden somewhere above the office played Me and Bobby McGee. Janis sounded as wasted as I felt. I had no doubt that Will was innocent, I had no doubt that he was worth every second I put toward proving him innocent, I had no doubt that we’d be good friends for the rest of our lives.

  But I sensed his relationship with Cathy Vance had been much more serious than either of them had let on. Right now all I knew was that he’d badly damaged his wife. His daughter would be next. She wouldn’t understand it now but three or four years down the line she’d begin to know what had, in all likelihood, driven her parents apart. The stats on divorces on returning vets were so bad that Congress had done what they always did, ordered a committee to study it.

  I could see Cathy through the front window marked Wentworth Real Estate. In a tight black skirt and red blouse, her Ava Gardner hair flung back with contrived abandon, she perched on the corner of her desk, a receiver between ear and shoulder, the long fingers holding a cigarette that coiled blue smoke into the office air.

  She watched me walk into her office with those wary silver-blue eyes of hers. The terrible thing that had happened to her that night in the Hills would always deny her the cachet of a true femme fatale. She’d been raped by two older men who’d been drunkenly stumbling home. That they served long prison terms didn’t matter much to a girl of twelve. Her cynicism was the product of pain, not arrogance. She broke too easily.

  “You asked for my opinion, Nick, and I gave it to you. I think they’re asking way too much for that land. I’m halfway convinced he’s even making up those rumors about a big office building being planned for there.” There was no smile for me but she did point to the small buff-colored leather couch in the far corner. “Nick, we’re friends. I’m not saying you don’t know what you’re doing.

  “We all misjudge things. I’m right about three out of four times at best. So you shouldn’t take what I say personally. All right?” Then, “Nick, a customer just came in. Just think about what I said. I could always be wrong about this and you could always be right, all right?”

  She hung up. “I don’t care what they say. You boys are way more vain than us girls. The guy calls me for an opinion and I give him an honest answer and he’s hurt. I offended his manliness somehow.” The showgirl smile. “But then I guess I can’t blame him. He doesn’t have much manliness to spare.”

  Four desks, walls covered with photos of homes and businesses and properties for sale. The furnishings and the carpeting ran to variations on brown.

  “I imagine you’re here to pester me about Will some more. And by the way, I see you’ve done a fine job of proving how innocent he is.”

  “I’m doing the best I can.”

  “I’m sure that’s a great comfort to him.”

  “Did he ever write you any letters?”

  “Yes, he did as a matter of fact. Before she stole him from me that summer in college. I used to think that maybe he was going to be a writer.”

  “More recently, I mean. When you were having an affair with him.”

  “You’re still on that.”

  “His wife found some letters he wrote to you but apparently never mailed. Recent letters.”

  “I imagine she had a fine time reading them. The same fine time I had reading his letter that he was breaking off our engagement.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Maybe for you. Not for me. I still remember basically going to bed for a month and not being able to get up. I started thinking that the shock had paralyzed me. I was that nuts. I got over that part of it but there was a part that stayed with me. And it’s with me now. Two husbands and two shrinks later and it’s still with me.”

  “So you had an affair with him.”

  She was leaning against the desk facing me. In her languid, enigmatic way her sexual powers were undeniable. But the silver-blue eyes never quite gave you any hint of what she might be thinking. There was even a possibility that she did not understand her own erotic force.

  “Yeah, Sam, we had an affair. And yes, he wrote me some letters. It’s nice to know that he wrote some that he didn’t even mail. Which makes me wonder why he broke it off.”

  “Well, it could always be that he was married.”

  “I know you think that’s a smart remark but that’s not why he broke it off. He didn’t love Karen anymore. He made that plain. I wanted him to leave her and marry me. For me the affair was like being in college again. I even let some of my work go, which I never do. But I didn’t care. We got together every chance we had. We even used to meet at seven thirty in the morning sometimes. He always joked how good morning sex was in a sleazy motel. Then it ended. And he broke it off the same way he’d broken it off the first time. No explanation. Just ‘I can’t do this anymore.’ No warning whatsoever. I’d had to find out about Karen by myself. And it’s the same this time. No idea.”

  She walked around behind her desk and sat down. She helped herself to a cigarette. “So you got what you wanted, Sam. I admitted that we had an affair.”

  “When did he tell you that it was off?”

  “Lunch. 5/29/71. 12:30-1:39 p.m. I put it on my calendar when I got back just the way I would any other business meeting. Because that’s how he was. All business. We could have been closing on a house the way he was. He has a cold side, you know.”

  “Yeah, every once in a while it comes out. You rarely see it. That’s what makes it so strange when you do see it. You can’t equate it with this big, lumbering, smiling guy.”

  “But it’s there. I’ve seen it twice now. The first time was when I started following him places when I learned about Karen that summer. He wasn’t just cold. He was so hostile. It was like we’d never been in love. I was just a nuisance to him.”

  “I’m sorry, Cathy.”

  The Vegas smile. “You are? The last time you saw me I didn’t pick up on any great sympathy.”

  “Then I apologize.”

  She knew how to exhale cigarette smoke dramatically. “I hear you’re seeing Mary Lindstrom.”

  “Right.”

  “I always envied her. She’s so beautiful but it never went to her head. In fact in high school the popular girls thought she was such a loser. And I know she didn’t date much because she had this thing for you. And you had it for Pamela. God, talk about a girl who was stuck on herself. You’re lucky to be with Mary now.”

  “I realize that more every day.”

  Then she said it and I wasn’t prepared for it and maybe she wasn’t either.

  “Since I’m going to confession here I may as well lay it all out for you. You were right: I sent Will those threatening letters.”

  “Wow.”

  “I told you I went a little crazy.”

  “That’s more than a little crazy.”

  “He deserved it for what he did to me.”

  “I have to ask you, Cathy, what were you doing the night Steve Donovan was murdered?”

  “God, I’m sick of talking to you, Sam. I really don’t like you anymore.”

  “I’m sorry for that, Cathy. I really am. But I nee
d to know where you were the night Donovan was killed.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with Donovan’s murder. Period.”

  “You’re not making my work any easier. I’ll have to tell Foster that you sent those letters.”

  “Paul?” Amused. “Paul’s taken me to dinner twice. Very nice guy. His wife dumped him for a younger man last year. He knows a little about the subject so he’s easy to talk to.”

  “We’ve all been dumped, Cathy. And most of us survive and get past it.”

  “I never understood why you held on to Pamela so long. She led you around like a little dog. All those years you wasted on her. She was never going to fall in love with you and everybody could see that except you.”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m just tired of you trying to make me sound like I’m the only one who held on too long. You don’t think that there are a lot of married people who are still in love with somebody from their past who broke their hearts?”

  I eased up from the couch. “It bothers me that you sent Will those letters.”

  “There isn’t anything I can do about that.”

  “The county attorney could file charges against you.”

  “You’re going to tell him, of course.”

  “I have to. I should also tell Foster. But since you’re such good friends, I’ll let you do the honors.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, torment faint but real in her tone. “I should leave this town anyway. Every place I look I see bad memories. It’s no place for me anymore.”

  She might have murdered Donovan, I thought. Those long-ago men and my confusing friend Will had stolen all her kindness and tenderness and compassion. She just might have framed Will. Bitterness and rage were the only things they’d left her with.

  The only things.

  20

  THE WHISPER WAR STARTED WHILE I WAS SETTING THE TABLE for supper.

  Kate and Nicole sat hypnotized by the TV in the other room and I was tending to plates, glasses, cups, silverware, and napkins when Mary came in with a spoonful of pasta sauce for me to taste.